Absolute Disaster

[u/CptnMcDoobie]

Any YouTubers or content creators, please reach out to me, I would love to share my story about what happened here.

First off, I spent over 1k USD three months ago for my husband and I to go this weekend. We were only able to go one day because it was so horrible that I couldn’t do any other days. There were multiple cancellations of A-list actors that we paid for (on top of the VIP passes) that cancelled a day or two prior to the event. The vendors all sold junk for the most part. There were lots of cool meet and greets but the VIP pass meant absolutely nothing. You pay premium prices only to wait much longer than it takes to actually get in the regular line to meet someone. You can stand in line for three hours to meet someone in the normal line, or wait five hours for a VIP pass person to take you to go meet the same person. There were panels that were okay at best. All of the things we paid for and didn’t get to go to? No refunds.

Here’s the absolute biggest problem: 65,000 people were sold tickets to the convention center. 65 fucking thousand. It’s was so absolutely packed that every single place you went, it wasn’t just shoulder to shoulder, it was people trampling each other. I use a walker to get around and it was absolutely impossible to get anywhere. I have been to plenty of fan expos at this convention center and it has NEVER been even half this size. The people that show up are bringing these giant totes to buy up merch, get a ton of shit signed, and go flip that stuff on eBay. I don’t hate that specifically, but they were taking up the elevators and as a disabled person, I had to wait in line, just like every other wheelchair user or walker user, for over forty minutes just for the elevator. The crowd was incredibly rude because they HAD to be or they can’t get anywhere. I was always as kind as possible to anyone in the way of where I was trying to go, but everyone was extremely rude and took advantage when I would try to let other disabled people through. Besides being impossible to get anywhere, there was very few decent stalls that sold anything good or quality. There was a really cool shop that sold a no ton of different pokemon plushies and the Power Rangers did show up which was so cool, they were such kind people. But everything else was really cheap, kitschy, poorly made merch and people selling cheap amazon stuff for 400 percent over cost.

The cleanliness was worse than you can imagine. By the end of the day on Saturday, there was food and napkins all over the floor, partly because the people sucked and didn’t care, and partially because the trash cans couldn’t get emptied fast enough. They were so understaffed and the employees literally couldn’t keep up and couldn’t even GET TO those areas because there were three times the amount of people that should’ve been there.

The sheer amount of people is an absolute fire safety hazard. If the alarms went off and everyone panicked, it would’ve been impossible for anyone to get out safely. People would’ve trampled and killed each other and everyone would’ve been trapped.

Final complaint? Do not bring a newborn or a bunch of kids under 6 years old to these places. Kids were getting hurt, parents were bringing their entire families because little kids are free. They’re bringing little babies to super spreader events and your kid isn’t gonna remember this at all. Leave them at home with someone. Disabled people were trying to use ADA compliant areas and entire families were packing their little kids into these huge wagons full of merch and the rest of us that were in a lot of pain had to wait for these irresponsible assholes to use the elevators before us. Kids are lovely, but don’t bring them to these insane places unless they are old enough to know what’s going on.

Oh and as I said earlier? VIP means NOTHING. You get a few pieces of okay merch and that’s it. There’s a lounge you can hang out in to get a break from the absolute CHAOS that is every other part of the convention. Only thing that was sort of worth it at all. Don’t bother spending any money and frankly, don’t bother going. It was the worst event I ever experienced and I will never go back unless it changes. If we don’t make these experiences public, they won’t change and they won’t care. The overselling of tickets by at least 3X as many people should’ve been there is ludicrous. I wanted to meet so many people but I can’t stand in line for hours on hours due to my disability. We were promised one thing and got something SO SUB PAR that I couldn’t believe how much of a disaster and disappointment everything was. If you think I’m blowing it out of proportion, talk to others that went. And if a mod takes this down, they’re not doing their job of letting us tell the truth.

Thank you for listening and if anyone wants me to get on call, I’d be happy to go into more detail. DM me.

TLDR: Too many bodies, too many people taking advantage of disabled people and not enough ADA compliance, and not safe for children. VIP at any fan expo is NOT WORTH IT, it’s a scam and you get nothing out of it.